In Defense of CDs

Many of my friends no longer listen to music on CDs. Instead, their entire library is installed on the hard drive of their laptop, iPod, some cloud service, or all of the above. A complete digital library of every song they’ve ever considered worthwhile to them is accessible almost instantly from almost anywhere. If they happen to be missing a song, its retrieval is only a few clicks and a few cents away. Playlists of their top-rated songs are constantly and automatically updated. Online services can recommend them new tunes based on their past listening history. Music can easily be integrated in any part of their lives. And I think it’s completely wrong.

Label me old-fashioned but I’m scared to see the CD go away. Quite a few people of all shapes and sizes want them to go away. They’re expensive. They take up too much space. They’re an inconvenient extra step in the process of getting brand new songs to their real destination: your iTunes library. To be dramatic, I believe them to be the last distribution system that takes collections of music as an art form seriously.

To clarify, there’s nothing in particular I like about the technology of a compact disc. I wish they were prettier. I wish they were more immune to surface damage. I wish the audio quality was higher and the capacity was larger. To the average consumer, CDs are mere physical backups of digital copies they store elsewhere, and with large capacity hard drives so cheap, why bother keeping a bunch of 700mb discs around?

The way I see it, the beauty of a CD is its limitations. There are rules, and to be a player in the CD distribution market you must adhere by them. CDs are limited to 80 minutes of 16 bit, 44.1khz audio. If you want to release a collection of songs that totals longer than 80 minutes, you’re going to spread it across two discs. If you’re exceeding 80 minutes of music and you’re upping the physical cost of your product, you better darn well make the experience worth it.

Some may argue that this puts constraints on an artist and stifles their creativity. I’ll move past the fact that I disagree and bring up what I believe to be the most beneficial limitation: that of the listener. When you insert a CD in a CD player, you’re hearing what’s on that CD. You won’t be hearing anything from other albums you might have purchased. Pandora won’t be streaming you recommendations (and ads) based on the first few songs. The second track you listen to won’t be from an album that was recorded 10 years ago. When you insert a CD in a CD player you prepare yourself to experience a complete work without interference.

The first time I heard Steely Dan’s Peg it ranked a 5/10 on my awesomeness scale. It was on a compilation disc that spanned a chunk of their musical career; a greatest hits sort of thing. The tune, released on Aja in 1977, was sandwiched between a song from ’74 and a song from ’72. Listening straight through that compilation, Peg stuck out like a sore thumb. It sounded like a completely different band. I later learned that it actually was.

Recently I picked up the remastered CD of Aja and was able to give it a complete listen through with Peg in context. Suddenly the awesomeness rating was through the roof. Finally hearing that Peg was the intended booty-shaking successor to Deacon Blues was a pleasant experience. Nothing radical happened here, it just felt right. A common sonic theme was present throughout, and listening made complete sense. Once Josie finished, the album was over and the music stopped. Notice: the next Steely Dan album in my library did not automatically start playing. I was able to spend a little time in silence and reflect on the great collection of songs I had just listened to.

And then I pressed play and listened again. Why? Maybe I was lazy and didn’t want to swap out discs. Maybe I wanted to pay more attention to a different aspect of the recordings this time. Regardless, I was given another chance to absorb the tunes. That is, another chance to appreciate the tracks I didn’t like as much, cherish the gems, and pick up on some fascinating musical ideas. Skipping songs was something I thought about but never followed through with. I consider it difficult to not find at least one aspect that you can appreciate from a song you’re not particularly fond of, and over time you may learn to appreciate the whole thing. Think about how much more of a pain it was to skip songs on cassette tapes and vinyl.

The point is, I believe listening to an album on a format that limits you to that album only is a great way to listen to music. I’d hate to see CDs go because they’re the last medium I see that limits your listening experience in a good way. “Shuffle” is perhaps the worst technological advancement ever implemented in music playing devices. Shuffling across your entire library can take you to unexplored corners, but I shudder to think of a shuffle-only listening experience. And don’t even get me started on shuffling songs within an album…

Signal Chains (beta)

Matt and I have been working on Signal Chains for a few months, and are finally somewhat ready for the public to see it. I’m going to create a crisis here to make what we did seem so much cooler:

The Problem: Audio gear is expensive. Few brick and mortar stores carry expensive audio gear and will let you get your grubby little hands all over it before purchasing. Conversely, when people post audio samples online, you’re not always sure what is involved. Is it really that mic that sounds that way? Or is the preamp they’re using coloring the sound?

The Solution: Signal Chains is essentially a way for audio engineers (or those who call themselves audio engineers) to share their signal flows through audio samples, documenting each piece and process involved. It does this by providing a somewhat standardized method of doing so.

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